ACF Interview Questions and Structure: What to Expect

• There is no single national ACF interview structure, and formats can vary between specialties, regions and institutions.
• ACF interviews commonly explore academic motivation, previous research, methodology, critical appraisal, statistics, future research interests and clinical-academic development.
• Your application and academic CV are likely to provide material for questioning, so expect interviewers to explore the research and achievements you have included.
• Interviewers may distinguish carefully between what a research team achieved and what you personally contributed.
• An apparently simple opening question can lead to increasingly detailed follow-up questions designed to establish the depth of your understanding.
• Research methodology and statistics may be assessed through interpretation and application rather than definitions alone.
• Critical appraisal may be assessed through discussion of a paper, abstract, study summary or published evidence.
• Future research questions can explore whether you can identify an important problem and think sensibly about how it might be investigated.
• Academic setbacks, ethics, integrity, teamwork and the practical challenges of combining clinical and academic training may also be explored.
• The interview is not simply about the number of publications on your CV. Panels are also interested in academic potential, understanding, judgement and reflection.
• Always check the specific information supplied for your own ACF interview rather than assuming another programme uses the same format.

There is no single interview structure used for every Academic Clinical Fellowship. The precise format depends on the specialty, institution and recruitment process, and candidates should therefore pay careful attention to the information supplied with the particular post.

It is more useful to think about the domains that may be assessed than to expect a fixed sequence of stations or questions.

---

Panel interviews

Some ACF interviews may take the form of a panel interview in which different aspects of your academic and clinical suitability are explored within one continuous discussion.

Different interviewers may take responsibility for particular areas. One might explore your previous research, for example, while another asks about methodology, your future academic interests or your reasons for applying to the programme.

The conversation can move quickly between topics, and follow-up questions may arise directly from something you have said.

---

Stations or separate assessment domains

Other recruitment processes may divide assessment into separate stations or defined areas.

You might therefore encounter an academic component alongside assessment of your broader suitability for clinical training.

The important point is not to assume that the structure experienced by somebody applying to a different ACF, specialty or institution will necessarily be replicated in your interview.

---

Critical appraisal, presentations and other exercises

Depending on the programme, you may encounter an academic exercise such as critical appraisal, discussion of an abstract or paper, interpretation of research findings or a presentation.

Where the programme provides specific instructions, these should always take precedence over generic advice about ACF interviews.

For a detailed approach to preparing for the different academic domains, see How to Prepare for an ACF Interview: A Complete Guide.

An ACF interview is not simply an examination of research knowledge or a competition to identify the applicant with the longest publication list.

Academic Clinical Fellowships are designed to support doctors developing towards clinical academic careers. The interview therefore provides an opportunity to explore not only what you have achieved already, but what your previous experience suggests about your future potential.

---

Academic achievement and academic potential

Publications, presentations, prizes, higher degrees and previous research experience can all provide useful evidence of academic engagement.

However, interviewers may be equally interested in what you understand about the work.

Can you explain why a project mattered? Do you understand the methodology? Can you recognise its limitations? Can you distinguish your contribution from that of the wider research team? What did you learn?

A candidate with a relatively modest project who understands it deeply may therefore be able to demonstrate considerable academic potential.

---

Understanding rather than CV accumulation

Academic questions frequently move beyond the achievement itself.

If you mention a publication, you may be asked about the methodology. If you describe an important finding, you may be asked whether it was clinically significant. If you identify a limitation, you may be asked how you would redesign the study.

This is why ACF questioning can feel different from a straightforward discussion of your CV.

The achievement opens the conversation. Your understanding determines where that conversation can go.

---

Clinical and academic development

An ACF is also clinical training.

Interviewers may therefore be interested in whether you understand the relationship between the two parts of your development. Academic medicine is not simply research undertaken alongside an unrelated clinical career.

Your clinical experience can generate research questions, while research can influence clinical practice. The ability to understand and articulate that relationship is central to developing as a clinical academic.

Motivation questions allow interviewers to explore why you are considering a clinical academic career and whether you understand what that career involves.

Several apparently similar questions may actually be assessing different things.

---

Why academic medicine?

Possible questions include:

• Why do you want a career in academic medicine?
• What first attracted you to clinical academia?
• Which experience has had the greatest influence on your academic interests?
• What do you enjoy about research?
• What do you think makes a successful clinical academic?
• What are the principal challenges of a clinical academic career?
• Why have you chosen academic medicine rather than a purely clinical career?
• Where would you like your academic career to be in ten years?

These questions are exploring the broader direction of your career rather than simply why you submitted this particular application.

---

Why an ACF?

You could be asked:

• Why have you applied for an Academic Clinical Fellowship?
• Why is an ACF the right next step for you?
• What do you hope to gain from an ACF?
• Which academic skills do you most need to develop?
• What would you hope to have achieved by the end of your ACF?
• How would an ACF contribute to your longer-term academic career?
• What would you do if you completed the ACF and decided that academic medicine was not for you?

These questions test whether you understand the purpose of the fellowship and can relate it to your own stage of development.

---

Why this programme?

Programme-specific questions might include:

• Why have you applied to this particular ACF programme?
• What attracts you to this institution?
• Which research groups here interest you?
• Are there particular academics whose work interests you?
• How do your research interests fit the work being undertaken here?
• What opportunities does this programme offer that are particularly relevant to your development?
• If your preferred research project were unavailable, how would you approach choosing another project?

These questions can distinguish a candidate who wants an ACF from one who has thought seriously about why they want this ACF.

Your previous research is likely to provide some of the richest material for academic questioning.

Anything you have included in your application may potentially be explored. The panel may move from a broad description of a project into its methodology, findings, limitations, your contribution and what you learned from it.

---

Questions about your main research project

Possible questions include:

• Tell us about your most important research project.
• What was the research question?
• Why was that question important?
• What methodology did you use?
• Why was that methodology chosen?
• What were the principal findings?
• What was the most important limitation?
• What would you do differently if you repeated the study?
• What did the project teach you about research?
• What should the next study investigate?
• Which of your research projects are you most proud of and why?
• Which project taught you the most?
• Which project was the most difficult?

A simple opening question can quickly develop.

If you tell the panel that you undertook a retrospective cohort study, for example, the next question may be why that design was chosen. That may be followed by questions about selection bias, confounding, missing data, the statistical analysis or whether a prospective design would have produced stronger evidence.

The panel is no longer simply asking what you did. It is discovering how well you understand what you did.

---

Questions about publications

If you have publications, you might be asked:

• Which publication are you most proud of?
• Why was that paper important?
• What was your contribution to the publication?
• What were the principal criticisms raised during peer review?
• Did peer review improve the paper?
• What is the greatest weakness of your published study?
• Do you agree with all the conclusions in the paper on which you are an author?
• What should the next piece of research be?
• How did the publication change your academic development?

Being an author does not mean that you must agree uncritically with everything in the paper. The ability to recognise limitations in your own published work can demonstrate academic maturity.

---

Questions about presentations and conferences

Questions might include:

• Tell us about a piece of work you presented at a conference.
• Why did you choose that conference?
• What was the most difficult question you received?
• How did you respond to criticism of your work?
• Did feedback from presenting the research change your thinking?
• How would you explain the work differently to a non-specialist audience?
• What happened to the project after the presentation?

These questions can explore academic communication as well as the underlying research.

Research is collaborative, and interviewers understand that a junior doctor is unlikely to have independently conceived, designed, delivered, analysed and published every project on their CV.

However, they may want to establish precisely what you did.

---

Separating your contribution from the team's

The distinction between “we” and “I” becomes important.

A project may have involved a principal investigator, supervisors, statisticians, laboratory researchers, research nurses and several junior researchers. The panel may therefore ask questions designed to separate the achievement of the group from your individual contribution.

There is nothing wrong with having played a relatively small role in a substantial project. What matters is describing that role accurately and understanding what you learned from it.

---

Questions designed to establish what you actually did

You might be asked:

• What exactly was your contribution to that project?
• Which elements did you undertake independently?
• Which decisions were made by your supervisor rather than by you?
• What would your supervisor say was your principal contribution?
• Which part of the project did you find most challenging?
• What did another member of the research team contribute that you could not have done yourself?
• How did your contribution change as the project developed?
• Which part of the methodology did you personally design?
• Did you perform the statistical analysis yourself?
• Who wrote the manuscript?
• How were decisions made within the research team?

These questions reward precision. They also make exaggerated descriptions of research experience difficult to sustain.

Methodology questions may be linked to your own research, a paper you are discussing or a completely new research scenario.

The interviewer may be less interested in whether you can recite definitions than whether you can choose and justify an appropriate approach to a research problem.

---

Choosing a study design

Possible questions include:

• How would you investigate whether a new treatment is effective?
• When would you choose a cohort study rather than an RCT?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of a case-control study?
• When might qualitative research be more appropriate than quantitative research?
• How would you select participants for this study?
• How would you choose the primary outcome?
• How would you investigate the accuracy of a new diagnostic test?
• What methodology would you use to explore patients' experiences of a treatment?
• What study design would you use to investigate a rare adverse outcome?
• Why might an RCT be inappropriate for this question?
• What would be an appropriate comparator?
• How would you decide on inclusion and exclusion criteria?

A good methodology question can have several defensible answers. The panel may therefore be more interested in the reasoning behind your choice than in one supposedly correct design.

---

Bias, confounding and validity

Questions might include:

• How would you minimise selection bias?
• What sources of information bias might affect this study?
• What is the most important potential confounder?
• How might you address confounding?
• What determines whether a study has good internal validity?
• Are the results of this study generalisable?
• How could loss to follow-up affect the findings?
• How might recall bias arise in this study?
• What effect could measurement error have?
• How could the design be improved to reduce bias?
• What is the main threat to the validity of this study?

For a detailed review of study design, bias, confounding and validity, see How to Prepare for an ACF Interview: A Complete Guide.

Statistical questions can arise directly, but they can also emerge from discussion of your research or critical appraisal of a paper.

The emphasis may therefore be on interpretation rather than performing calculations.

---

Interpreting research results

You might be asked:

• What does this confidence interval tell you?
• What does this p value tell you?
• Is this result statistically significant?
• Is it clinically significant?
• How precise is this estimate?
• What does the effect size tell you?
• The result is statistically significant. Does that mean it is important?
• The confidence interval is very wide. What does that tell you?
• Could this result have occurred by chance?
• Does the statistical analysis support the authors' conclusion?

These questions test whether you can connect statistics with the meaning of the research.

---

Common statistical concepts

Other possible questions include:

• What is a Type I error?
• What is a Type II error?
• What is statistical power?
• What is the difference between relative and absolute risk?
• What does an odds ratio tell you?
• What is number needed to treat?
• What is the difference between sensitivity and specificity?
• What factors affect positive predictive value?
• What factors affect negative predictive value?
• Does correlation demonstrate causation?
• How does sample size affect the precision of an estimate?
• Why might a study be underpowered?

Detailed revision of these concepts is covered in How to Prepare for an ACF Interview: A Complete Guide.

Critical appraisal can appear in several forms. You may be given a paper or abstract, asked to interpret a study or simply questioned about the quality of evidence during another academic discussion.

The questions can move from understanding what the researchers did to deciding whether their conclusions should be believed and whether the findings matter clinically.

---

Questions about validity

Possible questions include:

• What is the research question in this paper?
• Was the study design appropriate?
• What is the most important potential source of bias?
• How might confounding have influenced the result?
• Were the groups comparable?
• Was the population selected appropriately?
• Are the outcome measures appropriate?
• Was follow-up adequate?
• What effect could missing data have?
• What is the greatest threat to internal validity?

---

Questions about results

You might be asked:

• What is the most important result?
• How large is the effect?
• How precise is the estimate?
• Is the result statistically significant?
• Is it clinically significant?
• What do the confidence intervals tell you?
• Do the authors' conclusions follow from their findings?
• Could there be an alternative explanation for the result?

---

Questions about clinical relevance

Possible questions include:

• Are these findings applicable to NHS practice?
• Would this paper change your clinical practice?
• Does the study population resemble your patients?
• Are the outcomes important to patients?
• Are the benefits likely to outweigh the harms?
• Is the intervention feasible?
• What further research would you want to see?

---

How critical appraisal questions can develop

The opening question might simply be:

“What do you think of this study?”

The panel could then ask:

“What is the research question?”

Followed by:

“Was the study design appropriate?”

Then:

“What do you think is the greatest threat to validity?”

Then:

“The result is statistically significant. Is it clinically important?”

Then:

“Would you change your practice on the basis of this paper?”

Finally:

“What study would you want to see next?”

This illustrates an important feature of academic interviews. A single question can become a conversation that moves through methodology, statistics, clinical judgement and future research.

You may be asked to discuss a paper that you have found interesting, influential or important.

This allows interviewers to explore both your understanding of research and the way in which you engage with the academic literature.

---

Questions about the paper itself

Possible questions include:

• Tell us about a paper that has influenced you.
• What was the research question?
• Why was the question important?
• What methodology was used?
• What did the researchers find?
• What was the strongest aspect of the study?
• What was its greatest limitation?
• Were the authors' conclusions justified?

---

Questions about your interpretation

The panel might then ask:

• Why did you choose this paper?
• Do you agree with the authors' conclusions?
• Did the paper change your clinical practice or thinking?
• How does it fit with the existing evidence?
• What unanswered questions remain?
• What study should follow it?
• If you were reviewing the paper for a journal, what would concern you most?

This moves the conversation from summarising research towards evaluating it.

ACF panels may explore where your academic interests are developing and whether you can move from a broad area of curiosity towards a meaningful research question.

You are not necessarily expected to arrive with a completed doctoral proposal. The questions can instead explore how you think about uncertainty and research.

---

Identifying an academic question

You might be asked:

• What would you like to research during your ACF?
• Why does that subject interest you?
• What clinical problem interests you most?
• What is already known about the problem?
• What is the important unanswered question?
• Why does that uncertainty matter?
• Where is the gap in the existing evidence?
• How does your previous research relate to this interest?

---

Designing future research

Follow-up questions could include:

• How would you investigate it?
• Which study design would you choose?
• Which population would you study?
• What would your primary outcome be?
• What are the major threats to the study's validity?
• Is the project feasible during an ACF?
• Which researchers here might be relevant to the project?
• What expertise would you need?
• What would you do if your initial study produced a negative result?
• What would the next stage of the research programme be?
• Could this work contribute to a later doctoral fellowship?
• What would make you abandon or substantially modify the proposed project?

These questions can assess academic direction without requiring your future career to be predetermined.

Research rarely proceeds perfectly. Recruitment fails, manuscripts are rejected, projects stall, hypotheses are disproved and experiments produce unexpected results.

Questions about these experiences can provide considerable insight into how you respond when academic work becomes difficult.

---

Projects that did not go to plan

Possible questions include:

• Tell us about a research project that did not go according to plan.
• Describe a project that never reached publication.
• Have you ever had to abandon a research idea?
• Tell us about a time recruitment was more difficult than expected.
• Describe a situation in which the data did not support your hypothesis.
• What has been the greatest disappointment in your academic career so far?
• What would you do differently now?

These questions can explore resilience, problem-solving and reflection.

---

Rejection, mistakes and difficult feedback

You could also be asked:

• Have you ever had a manuscript rejected?
• What did you learn from the rejection?
• Tell us about a mistake you made during a research project.
• Tell us about difficult academic feedback you received.
• Describe a time when someone challenged your interpretation of your results.
• Have you ever changed your mind because of feedback from a supervisor or reviewer?
• What is the most important criticism you have received about your academic work?

The panel may be less interested in whether something went wrong than in what happened afterwards.

Research integrity questions allow interviewers to explore both your understanding of appropriate academic conduct and your judgement when faced with difficult situations.

Some may be framed as direct questions, while others may be presented as scenarios.

---

Research governance and participant issues

Possible questions include:

• A participant withdraws consent. What would you do?
• You discover a significant protocol deviation. How would you respond?
• How would you handle confidential research data?
• Why is research ethics approval important?
• What would you do if participant safety became a concern during a study?
• What would you do if you discovered that identifiable data had been shared incorrectly?
• How would you respond if recruitment procedures were not following the approved protocol?

---

Research misconduct and authorship

Questions might include:

• What would you do if you suspected that research data had been altered?
• What would you do if a colleague fabricated data?
• A senior researcher asks to be included as an author despite having made little contribution. What would you do?
• What would you do if you suspected selective reporting?
• What would you do if you disagreed with your supervisor about whether an unexpected result should be reported?
• How would you respond to an authorship dispute?
• What would you do if you discovered an error in a paper after publication?
• What would you do if a colleague asked you to remove inconvenient data from an analysis?

These questions can become deliberately uncomfortable because the panel is exploring whether academic ambition remains compatible with integrity.

Research frequently involves people with very different expertise, priorities and professional backgrounds.

Academic teamwork questions may therefore provide richer evidence than conventional examples of working within a clinical team.

---

Working within research teams

Possible questions include:

• Tell us about working within a multidisciplinary research team.
• Tell us about working with someone whose expertise was very different from yours.
• What have you learned from working with statisticians or methodological experts?
• Tell us about a time another member of the research team changed your thinking.
• What makes an effective research collaboration?
• How do you ensure communication remains effective within a research team?
• What do you contribute to a research team?

---

Disagreement and difficult academic relationships

You might also encounter:

• Describe a disagreement with a research colleague.
• How would you approach an authorship dispute?
• How do you respond when a statistician challenges your interpretation?
• How would you deal with a collaborator who repeatedly failed to deliver their part of a project?
• What would you do if you disagreed with your supervisor's methodological decision?
• Tell us about a time you had to compromise within a research project.
• How would you manage a disagreement between two senior members of your research team?

These questions assess how you behave when collaboration becomes difficult, rather than simply whether you enjoy teamwork.

An ACF combines two demanding areas of development. Interviewers may therefore explore whether you understand the practical realities of maintaining progress in both.

---

Managing competing responsibilities

Questions might include:

• How will you balance your clinical and academic commitments?
• What would you do if clinical work repeatedly encroached on your academic time?
• How would you maintain your clinical competencies?
• How would you manage competing clinical and research deadlines?
• What would you do if your research project was falling behind?
• How would you prioritise if both a clinical and academic deadline were approaching?
• What would you do if your academic workload began affecting your clinical training?

---

Working with clinical and academic supervisors

Possible questions include:

• How would you use your academic supervisor?
• How would you use your clinical supervisor?
• What would you do if your clinical and academic supervisors gave you conflicting advice?
• How would you agree realistic academic objectives?
• What would you do if you felt you were not receiving sufficient academic supervision?
• How would you respond if your proposed research project proved unrealistic?

These questions are not simply about time management. They explore how you would navigate two overlapping training environments.

One of the most important things to understand about an academic interview is that the opening question may be only the beginning.

The panel can use follow-up questions to establish whether your knowledge extends beyond a rehearsed answer. The conversation may move from your own experience into methodology, statistics, critical appraisal or research design.

The following examples illustrate how that can happen.

---

Research project question chain

The panel begins:

“Tell us about your main research project.”

You describe the question, study and findings.

The interviewer asks:

“What was your individual contribution?”

Then:

“Why did the team choose that study design?”

Then:

“What was the greatest source of bias?”

Then:

“How might that bias have affected the result?”

Then:

“If you had unlimited resources, how would you redesign the study?”

Finally:

“What research question should come next?”

The panel has moved from your CV through contribution, methodology, critical thinking and future research without ever formally changing topic.

---

Research methodology question chain

The opening question is:

“How would you investigate whether a new intervention improves this outcome?”

You propose a study design.

The panel asks:

“Why have you chosen that design?”

Then:

“Who would you recruit?”

Then:

“What would your primary outcome be?”

Then:

“What are the main potential sources of bias?”

Then:

“How many participants would you need?”

Then:

“What ethical difficulties might arise?”

Finally:

“Is this actually feasible during an ACF?”

The purpose is not merely to discover whether you know the names of research designs. It is to explore whether you can build a coherent study around a research question.

---

Critical appraisal question chain

The panel begins:

“What do you think of this study?”

You identify the question and design.

The interviewer asks:

“What is its greatest methodological strength?”

Then:

“What is its greatest limitation?”

Then:

“The authors report a statistically significant result. What does that tell you?”

Then:

“Is the difference clinically important?”

Then:

“Would you change your practice?”

Finally:

“What additional evidence would you want before doing so?”

The questioning has moved from methodology to statistics and then to clinical application.

---

Future research question chain

The opening question is:

“What would you like to research during your ACF?”

You describe an area of interest.

The panel asks:

“What exactly is the unanswered question?”

Then:

“What evidence tells you that this is genuinely a research gap?”

Then:

“How would you investigate it?”

Then:

“Why have you chosen that methodology?”

Then:

“Could you realistically complete that work during an ACF?”

Then:

“Who at this institution might be able to support the project?”

Finally:

“Where could the research lead after the ACF?”

This tests considerably more than whether you can name a research topic that interests you.

An interviewer may eventually ask something that reaches the limits of your knowledge.

That is not necessarily accidental.

Research itself operates at the boundary between what is known and what is uncertain. An academic interview can therefore reveal a great deal about a candidate by observing how they respond when they cannot immediately produce an answer.

Trying to bluff is risky, particularly when the interviewer has expertise in the area.

Equally, uncertainty does not always mean that the discussion has to stop. You may be able to explain what you do know, identify what additional information you would need or reason through the problem from first principles.

The panel may therefore learn something useful about your intellectual honesty and your ability to think when the answer is not immediately available.

The questions throughout this guide illustrate the range of topics that may arise. The following bank brings the major domains together as a rapid-practice resource.

They are not predictions of the exact questions you will receive. Their purpose is to expose you to the range and depth of questioning that an academic interview can involve.

Domain	Examples of what may be explored
Academic motivation	Why academic medicine and long-term career direction
ACF motivation	Why an ACF and why now
Programme	Why this institution, department or research environment
Research experience	Projects, methodology, findings and learning
Contribution	What you personally did
Publications	Authorship, findings, limitations and peer review
Methodology	Study design, population, outcomes and feasibility
Statistics	Interpretation, uncertainty and clinical significance
Critical appraisal	Validity, results and applicability
Future research	Research gaps, study design and academic direction
Setbacks	Failure, rejection, reflection and resilience
Integrity	Ethics, misconduct, authorship and governance
Collaboration	Teamwork, disagreement and interdisciplinary research
Clinical-academic working	Managing the dual demands of an ACF

---

Motivation and career questions

1. Why do you want a career in academic medicine?
2. What first attracted you to clinical academia?
3. Which experience has had the greatest influence on your academic interests?
4. What do you enjoy about research?
5. What do you think makes a successful clinical academic?
6. What are the principal challenges of a clinical academic career?
7. Why have you chosen academic medicine rather than a purely clinical career?
8. Where would you like your academic career to be in ten years?

---

ACF-specific questions

9. Why have you applied for an Academic Clinical Fellowship?
10. Why is an ACF the right next step for you?
11. What do you hope to gain from an ACF?
12. Which academic skills do you most need to develop?
13. What would you hope to have achieved by the end of your ACF?
14. How would an ACF contribute to your longer-term academic career?
15. What would you do if you completed the ACF and decided academic medicine was not for you?

---

Programme and institution questions

16. Why have you applied to this particular ACF programme?
17. What attracts you to this institution?
18. Which research groups here interest you?
19. Are there particular academics whose work interests you?
20. How do your research interests fit the work being undertaken here?
21. What opportunities does this programme offer that are particularly relevant to your development?
22. If your preferred research project were unavailable, how would you approach choosing another project?

---

Research experience and contribution questions

23. Tell us about your most important research project.
24. What was the research question?
25. Why was that question important?
26. What methodology did you use?
27. Why was that methodology chosen?
28. What were the principal findings?
29. What was the most important limitation?
30. What would you do differently if you repeated the study?
31. What did the project teach you?
32. What should the next study investigate?
33. Which research project are you most proud of?
34. Which project taught you the most?
35. Which project was the most difficult?
36. What exactly was your contribution?
37. Which elements did you undertake independently?
38. Which decisions were made by your supervisor?
39. What would your supervisor say was your principal contribution?
40. What did another member of the research team contribute that you could not have done yourself?

---

Publications and presentations

41. Which publication are you most proud of?
42. Why was that paper important?
43. What was your contribution?
44. What criticisms arose during peer review?
45. Did peer review improve the paper?
46. What is the greatest weakness of the study?
47. Do you agree with all the conclusions?
48. Tell us about research you presented at a conference.
49. What was the most difficult question you received?
50. Did feedback change your interpretation of the work?

---

Research methodology

51. How would you investigate whether a new treatment is effective?
52. When would you choose a cohort study rather than an RCT?
53. What are the strengths and weaknesses of a case-control study?
54. When might qualitative research be appropriate?
55. How would you select participants?
56. How would you choose a primary outcome?
57. How would you minimise selection bias?
58. What sources of information bias might affect the study?
59. What is the most important potential confounder?
60. How could you address confounding?
61. What makes a study internally valid?
62. Are these findings generalisable?

---

Statistics and interpretation

63. What does a confidence interval tell you?
64. What does a p value tell you?
65. What is the difference between statistical and clinical significance?
66. What is a Type I error?
67. What is a Type II error?
68. What is statistical power?
69. What is the difference between relative and absolute risk?
70. What does an odds ratio tell you?
71. What is number needed to treat?
72. What is the difference between sensitivity and specificity?
73. What factors affect positive predictive value?
74. Does correlation demonstrate causation?
75. This result is statistically significant. Does that mean it is important?
76. The confidence interval is very wide. What does that tell you?

---

Critical appraisal

77. What is the research question in this paper?
78. Was the study design appropriate?
79. What is the most important source of bias?
80. How might confounding have influenced the result?
81. Are the outcome measures appropriate?
82. What is the most important result?
83. Is the result clinically significant?
84. Do the authors' conclusions follow from their findings?
85. What is the greatest limitation?
86. Are the findings applicable to NHS practice?
87. Would this paper change your clinical practice?
88. What further research would you want to see?

---

Future research

89. What would you like to research during your ACF?
90. Why does that subject interest you?
91. What is already known?
92. What is the important unanswered question?
93. Why does that uncertainty matter?
94. How would you investigate it?
95. Which study design would you choose?
96. Which population would you study?
97. What would your primary outcome be?
98. What are the major threats to validity?
99. Is the project feasible during an ACF?
100. Which researchers here might be relevant?
101. What would you do if your initial study produced a negative result?
102. What would the next stage of the research be?

---

Academic setbacks

103. Tell us about a research project that did not go according to plan.
104. Tell us about an academic failure.
105. Have you ever had a manuscript rejected?
106. What did you learn from the rejection?
107. Tell us about a mistake you made during research.
108. Describe a project that never reached publication.
109. What would you do differently now?
110. Tell us about difficult academic feedback you received.
111. Have you ever had to abandon a research idea?
112. What has been your greatest academic disappointment?

---

Ethics and integrity

113. What would you do if you suspected that research data had been altered?
114. What would you do if a colleague fabricated data?
115. A senior researcher requests authorship despite making little contribution. What would you do?
116. You discover a significant protocol deviation. How would you respond?
117. A participant withdraws consent. What would you do?
118. How would you handle confidential research data?
119. What would you do if you disagreed with your supervisor about reporting a result?
120. What would you do if you suspected selective reporting?
121. Why is research ethics approval important?
122. What would you do if participant safety became a concern?

---

Teamwork and collaboration

123. Tell us about working within a multidisciplinary research team.
124. Describe a disagreement with a research colleague.
125. How would you approach an authorship dispute?
126. Tell us about working with someone whose expertise was different from yours.
127. How do you respond when a methodological expert challenges your interpretation?
128. Tell us about a time another researcher changed your thinking.
129. What makes an effective research collaboration?
130. How would you deal with a collaborator who repeatedly failed to deliver?

---

Clinical-academic working

131. How will you balance your clinical and academic commitments?
132. What would you do if clinical work repeatedly encroached on academic time?
133. How would you maintain your clinical competencies?
134. How would you manage competing clinical and research deadlines?
135. What would you do if your research project was falling behind?
136. How would you use your academic supervisor?
137. How would you use your clinical supervisor?
138. What would you do if your clinical and academic supervisors gave you conflicting advice?

You do not need to prepare 138 memorised answers. Indeed, doing so would be counterproductive. The value of a large question bank is that it exposes you to different ways in which the same underlying academic domains can be explored.